Kickstarter Fulfillment 101: Shipping Costs

You've found the second in a series of blog posts on Kickstarter fulfillment for the discerning RPG publisher, the first covering Pledge Management and perils therein. This time, I'm going to break down the exact formula you need to avoid losing money on shipping for your next project. I'll also show my work, analyzing every step in the formula in detail to ensure you never miss a hidden fee again. 

Compounding fees will sink your budget if you don't plan ahead and factor in some wiggle room. Recalling stats from my previous post, I narrowly avoided over $1500 in losses (nearly 1/3 of my profit margin for the entire Kickstarter) by using a pledge manager for shipping cost collection and carefully calculating a tangled web of fees via the following methods. 

My fulfillment for The Drain is still underway with a few outstanding orders and replacement packages left to ship out, but I estimate my true final costs fall within a 1% margin of collected shipping costs—an extremely relieving success in my book.

Ready for math? Let's dive in.